He's From Chicago And He's On A Mission From God

And the worst people in the world are FURIOUS :)

No, this doesn’t make any sense in a post about wokeness. But Chicago! Tip o’ the leather catsuit hat to Alert Wonkette Operative ‘President Rufus T. Superfly’ for hed.

By now, you’ve probably heard that America has a new pope, and that he is also Catholic. Robert Prevost, from Chicago, was chosen as the new pope yesterday, and we quickly learned that he’s a fan of the White Sox, putting the lie to a tweet from the Cubs claiming “Hey Chicago, HE’S A CUBS FAN!” (But as smartasses on social media pointed out, he was ultimately drafted by the Cardinals.) As penance for fibbing, the Cubs must say three Hail Marys and keep being the Cubs.

But the real to-do and foofaraw following the elevation of the first pope born in the USA came from the College of Crazies on the far Right. The freakout was led by (among many others) conspiracy freak and presidential confidante (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) Laura Loomer, who saw some of New Pope’s Old Tweets criticizing Donald Trump and JD Vance and had a friggin’ meltdown. Here’s her reply to a 2015 retweet from Prevost of an article criticizing “Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric”:

The best thing about this completely predictable whine was that it elicited any number of replies from people pointing out that Chappel Roan really needs to sing the phrase to the tune of “Pink Pony Club.”

Loomer also retweeted the same 2015 message from Prevost that prompted her WOKE MARXIST POPE outburst, but with a lot more commentary added. Did she call Leo XIV a “Marxist” again? How could she not?! She has Marxist Tourette’s!

Wingnuts were especially upset over a hot theology fight that Prevost picked early this year with JD Vance over Vance’s weird nationalist adult-Catholic-convert take on St. Augustine’s idea of “ordo amoris.” Get ready, doctrinesplaining on the way:

Vance, a convert to the wacky far-right version of Catholicism, claimed in a January 29 Fox News interview that God commands Christians to measure out their love carefully so they don’t run out or waste it on dirty immigrants, especially not the illegal ones. Vance was applauded by fellow Christian nationalists for claiming

“There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far Left has completely inverted that.”

We will repeat ourselves and cite once again the best summation of the JD Vances of the world we’ve ever had the pleasure to read, from a woman we think might be Jew-ish but who really gets the whole “thing.”

The idea that Jesus wanted people to not bother caring much about foreigns — which would mean the Good Samaritan was played for a patsy — was horrifying not only to theologians but also to anyone with a functioning moral compass, including Cardinal Prevost, who retweeted a couple of articles on the question from Catholic outlets.

Here, links to those articles at National Catholic Reporter and America Magazine

As the latter article points out, Vance’s comments even drew a direct rebuke from Pope Francis, who patiently explained that NO, JD, “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” and that the love of Christ is “a fraternity open to all, without exception.”

Wow, what a Woke Marxist Pope that Francis was! And now there’s another one! The treasonous idea that love isn’t dependent on immigration status deeply upset MAGA troll Joey Mannarino, who has a ridiculously large following because he is exactly like this:

He seems nice.

More recently, in his last post to Twitter before being elected pope, Prevost retweeted a message condemning Donald Trump and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele for joking about Kilmar Abrego Garcia being disappeared forever into a prison run by Bukele.

There’s a bit to unpack here, so we will be servicey! That tweet cited an April article by Bishop Evelio Menjivar of the Washington DC archdiocese, himself a Salvadoran who illegally smuggled himself across the border in the trunk of a car in 1990 and is now a citizen. It’s a good read! Menjivar asked in the article (italics in original)

Do you not see the suffering of your neighbors? Do you not realize the pain and misery and very real fear and anxiety these unjust government operations and policies are causing? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?

We like this Bishop Menjivar fellow, and hope that Trump won’t revoke his naturalization and send him to Bukele’s torture prison. But Prevost’s retweet of those dangerously compassionate sentiments proved to a lot of rightwing nutters that New Pope is entirely too cursed with empathy, or the “woke mind virus,” which is the same thing.

OK, enough of the “context,” let’s get back to the wingnut outrage, shall we? Rightwing shit-stirrer Mike Cernovich, pointing to the post about Trump and Abrego Garcia, lamented, “Sorry, Catholics. This new Pope is an open borders globalist. He will be pushing for abortion soon. This isn’t a guess. You can scroll his X account and see what he’s been up to.” (That tweet also included a screenshot of Prevost’s retweet of a message from Sen Chris Murphy following the horrific Las Vegas mass shooting, in which Murphy said “thoughts and prayers” aren’t enough, and how dare a bishop oppose prayer!!!)

Righty-Tighties were also VERY MAD that Prevost had retweeted a terribly inflammatory race-baiting tweet from another bishop, who called for prayers for George Floyd, his family, and for an end to “hatred, violence, and prejudice” in America. Here’s Loomer’s hissy on that retweet:

We’re sure there’s plenty more, but this is probably enough. Just remember that the MAGA crowd is very big on Christian nationalism, as long as there’s no mercy in their Christianity, the end.

[Independent / National Catholic Reporter / America / Catholic Standard]

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